'Office,' 'Passions' play online

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NEW YORK -- NBC is ramping up the online presence of "The Office" and "Passions," the network said Monday.

Debuting on Thursday night at 9 p.m. PT, NBC.com will offer a "producer's cut" of "Office," which will feature additional scenes and extra footage from the show. The webcast will follow a regular episode of the Emmy-winning comedy, which airs at 8:30 p.m. Thursdays.

"This is a natural for this show, which has continually pushed the envelope in the digital landscape," said Vivi Zigler, executive vp NBC Digital Entertainment and New Media.

In December, "Office" became one of the first shows to be made available for download through the iTunes Music Store, and last summer, 10 webisodes featuring characters from the show ran on NBC.com.

NBC also hopes to lure viewers to its Web site with full episodes of the daytime soap opera "Passions," which will be available daily after 6 p.m. PT on NBC.com and remain on the site for a week. This marks the first time a network will stream full episodes of a daytime drama online.

"As we have shown with our primetime programming, adding digital extensions to our shows is immensely popular," NBC Universal Cable Entertainment president Jeff Gaspin said. "We anticipate similar results with 'Passions' because this daypart has such loyal viewers."